The Correlates of Self-Assessed Community Belonging in Canada: Social Capital,Neighbourhood Characteristics,and Rootedness

This study examines the extent to which a single-item question on sense of community belonging captures the multi-dimensionality of the underlying concept. Many studies use multi-item scales to measure the different dimensions of this concept, but including extensive questions on community belonging in large surveys is often impractical given constraints on survey lengths and budgets. Having an economical and robust measure provides considerable scope for future studies to consider the effects of community belonging without reliance on multi-item scales. Drawing on several large, nationally representative Canadian surveys, the study shows that self-assessed community belonging is a parsimonious measure of a broad range of factors that pertain to local social relations, neighbourhood characteristics, and place attachment. Social capital yields the strongest correlations, and also plays an important mediating role vis-à-vis other variables. However, neighbourhood characteristics (e.g., perceptions of area crime, the built environment) and “rootedness” (e.g., duration of residence in an area) are also significantly correlated with sense of community belonging, independent of individuals’ strength of social capital.     

‘When and where does being Welsh matter to me?’ The influence of cross-border mobilities on constructions of sub-national belonging in the lives of Welsh Muslims*

This article will discuss how Welsh Muslims construct what a sense of place means to them through their cross-border mobility between England and Wales, and how this contributes to the ongoing re-construction of a plural understanding of nationhood in an era of diversity. To understand when and where being Welsh matters to Welsh Muslims, it will explore how mobility rather than being the antithesis of belonging, can be used as an essential tool in highlighting how perceptions of the nation, sub-state nation, home and place are influenced and understood.     

Sense of Place and Health in Hamilton, Ontario: A Case Study

The concept of sense of place has received considerable attention by social scientists in recent years. Research has indicated that a person's sense of place is influenced by a number of factors including the built environment, socio-economic status (SES), well-being and health. Relatively few studies have examined sense of place at the neighbourhood level, particularly among communities exhibiting different levels of SES. This article investigates sense of place among three neighbourhood groups in Hamilton, Ontario representing areas of low, mixed and high SES. It analyses data from a 16-point sense of place scale derived from the Hamilton Household Quality of Life Survey carried out in 2010-2011 among 1,002 respondents. The paper found that sense of place was highest among residents of the high SES neighbourhood group as well as among home owners, people residing in single-detached homes, retired residents and those living in their neighbourhood for more than 10?years. From a health perspective, the paper found that a strong association existed between sense of place and self-perceived mental health across the three neighbourhood groups. Furthermore, by way of regression modeling, the paper examined the factors influencing health-related sense of place. Among the sample of respondents, a strong connection was found between housing, particularly home ownership, and high levels of health-related sense of place.     

The structure and significance of community satisfaction

Residential and community satisfaction have been studied for many decades in an effort to understand human commitments to local places. In more recent years, concepts that more nearly reflect commitment have been developed, among them place attachment. Yet, the extensive, prior work on empirical indicators of satisfaction give that concept a particularly useful entry into studies of experiences of place, even though these may only provide estimates of phenomena of deeper commitment. The present study is drawn from the data for a large-scale investigation of the meaning ofcommunity in metropolitan America. Based on 2,622 women and men from 42 municipalities in 10 SMSAs across the United States, the study includes a sample of all socioeconomic statuses and from minority as well as majority populations. On the basis of factor analyses of a wide array of evaluations and satisfactions with housing, neighborhood, and the wider community, a structure for community satisfaction has been delineated. On the basis of these community satisfaction factors, along with several other social role and personality variables, an estimate is provided of the personal significance of community satisfaction in people's lives, using life satisfaction as the dependent variable. While there are socioeconomic status and other variations, community satisfactions appear to be important influences on life satisfaction at all socioeconomic status levels.Requests for reprints should be addressed to Marc Fried, Dept. of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167.The now defunct Center for Metropolitan Studies of the National Institute of Mental Health was most helpful, not only in funding this study but in many other respects as well. The author is also grateful to the many people who participated in the large-scale study of which this paper represents only a small part. In particular, John Havens and Lorna Ferguson were most important to the achieving of the objectives of the study.     

Further consideration of indicators of community attachment

Two studies of contradictory results concerning models of community attachment are briefly reviewed, one of which reported strong support for a ‘systemic’ model while the other placed greater emphasis on the relationship of size of place with attachment. Using data from 27 communities located in Iowa, measures used in both studies are replicated to the extent possible. Length of residence, age, and local social ties, important elements in the ‘systemic’ model of community attachment, are more strongly related to attachment than is size of place in this restudy.     

Different Predictors of Quality of Life in Urban Environment

The present study aimed at comparing the effects of different sets of predictors on quality of life in an urban environment. We used secondary data collected by means of a self-report questionnaire on a sample of 343 residents of a big Italian city. The questionnaire included a multidimensional scale elaborated by the World Health Organization (WHOQoL brief scale) assessing quality of life in terms of four different evaluations concerning distinct aspects of life: physical health; psychological status; social relationships; environment. Four different types of predictors were considered: (1) socio-demographic characteristics; (2) quality of social relations (perceived social support); (3) place attachment; (4) healthy lifestyle. To test the influence of different groups of predictors on the dimensions of WHOQoL we performed four hierarchical regression analyses. Several significant influences were found. In particular the results pointed out the great role of perceived social support and place attachment in promoting quality of life. That result suggests the importance of community interventions in urban environment.     

Natural resource collection and desired family size: a longitudinal test of environment-population theories

Theories relating the changing environment to human fertility predict that declining natural resources may actually increase the demand for children. Unfortunately, most previous empirical studies have been limited to cross-sectional designs that limit our ability to understand links between processes that change over time. We take advantage of longitudinal measurement spanning more than a decade of change in the natural environment, household agricultural behaviors, and individual fertility preferences to reexamine this question. Using fixed effect models, we find that women experiencing increasing time required to collect firewood to heat and cook or fodder to feed animals (the dominant needs for natural resources in this setting) increased their desired family size, even as many other macro-level changes have reduced desired family size. In contrast to previous, cross-sectional studies, we find no evidence of such a relationship for men. Our findings regarding time spent collecting firewood are also new. These results support the “vicious circle” perspective and economic theories of fertility pointing to the value of children for household labor. This feedback from natural resource constraint to increased fertility is an important mechanism for understanding long-term environmental change.     

Size of place in relation to community attachment and satisfaction with community services

A general problem in the area of urban studies has been the determination of factors significantly related to community attachment. Louis Wirth had argued that with increasing community size the level of community attachment diminishes. However, Kasarda and Janowitz employed British data and found that the length of residence in the community was a more important determinant of community attachment. Buttel et al. re-examined the question and found that the size of the community was the most important determiner of community attachment. This study analyzes the question employing national survey data collected in 1971 in the Quality of American Life study. Employing variables comparable to those of the Buttel et al. study, similar results are obtained, except that race, a variable not included in the previous study, is found to be quite significant for determining levels of community attachment. However, when urban density is introduced as a variable for the urban areas in the sample, it is found to be the most important determiner of community attachment.     

Relational factors in understanding satisfaction in the lasting relationships of same sex and heterosexual couples

Satisfying relationships are important to the well-being of individuals and families. Because of increased longevity, many couples are staying together for extended periods of time. Thus, it is valuable to understand the factors that contribute to a sense of satisfaction among partners in lasting relationships. Relatively little attention has been paid in the research literature to relationships among older couples who have remained together for many years. Even less attention has been paid to the lasting relationships of couples of color and to gay male and lesbian couples. This paper focuses on understanding the factors that contribute to satisfaction of partners in the long-term relationships of a purposive sample of heterosexual and same-sex couples. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 216 partners in 108 relationships that had lasted an average of 30 years. Using logistic regression analysis, two factors were identified as predictive of satisfaction during the recent years of these relationships: containment of relational conflict and psychologically intimate communication between partners. Based on these findings, a theoretical model for understanding satisfaction in lasting relationships is discussed.     

Attachment Style,Openness to Experience,and Social Contact as Predictors of Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

ABSTRACT

Considerable research has shown that people generally hold more negative attitudes toward homosexuals. Given this fact, it is important to understand psychological and social correlates of homophobia. With this purpose, the present study investigates attachment styles, openness to experience, and social contact in relation to attitudes toward homosexuals. The findings show that being female, having prior contact with homosexuals, and scoring high in openness to experience predict more favorable attitudes toward homosexuals. The supplementary analyses also support the moderating effect of secure attachment on the relationship between openness to experience and attitudes toward homosexuals. The present study not only extends the related research by examining the interactive effects of attachment style and personality trait, but also provides important implications for researchers, educators, or managers in terms of reducing anti-homosexual attitudes in diverse settings.     

Neighborhood naming as an index of attachment to place

One aspect of attachment to place may relate to neighborhood naming. That is, recent investigations have found that in many communities large numbers of residents can supply locality labels. The most recent studies, however, have failed to confirm the importance of local social involvement as a predictor of naming. Following the earlier suggestion of Shumaker and Taylor (1983) that attachment dynamics can operate at the group level, we focus on small, local groups by analyzing street blocks. Results support our hypothesis that groups with more shared local ties are more able to supply a neighborhood name. This relationship was also obtained when we examined purely individual-level covariation. Results underscore the multilevel nature of attachment processes and how they are both social and psychological in nature. Links between cognitive and affective components of attachment and practical outcomes such as local problem solving are discussed.     

Nature as nurture: Rural older women’s perspectives on the natural environment

ABSTRACT

Rural older women are surrounded by nature, a dynamic context for human development. Informed by place attachment and attention restoration theory, and guided by a life course perspective, this qualitative study focused on the perceived influence of nature in the lives of 34 rural older women. Using grounded theory techniques to analyze in-depth interviews, two primary findings emerged: (a) nature was integral to the women’s identity; and (b) interactions with nature were motivated by prior positive spiritual and psychological outcomes. Findings revealed the power of the natural environment as a resource for coping with the challenges associated with aging.     

Acquiring a new birth outlook is an important content of school education]

Besides good administration and technical measures, a new birth outlook from the general public is also very important for all work on population control. Through education, the people will learn to transform their traditional birth outlook to a modern one, based upon the interests of the nation. All schools have the important mission of establishing a new birth outlook through the political, legal, moral, and scientific education of the next generation. Educational methods should be variable and active, step by step through all school levels. Different contents and measures should be taken to educate the elementary school students in order that they may understand national policy, the equality between male and female, and the need to obey laws and regulations. In secondary education, emphasis should be given to the knowledge of population science, general health hygiene, human sexuality, common sense in health care for young people, and the relationship between human lives and the natural environment. For college students, because they are close to marrying age, special attention should be given to the practice of late marriage, late child-bearing, birth control, population policy, and studies of population science. Scientists and educators should cooperate to develop a complete system of educational materials to be used at various educational levels. A new birth outlook among the young generation will be created as a result of school education.     

Social networks and changes in contraceptive use over time: evidence from a longitudinal study in rural Kenya

The impacts of social networks on changes in contraception in rural Kenya are investigated using special data from a longitudinal household survey. An analytic model, informed by detailed knowledge of the setting, yielded estimates that indicate that (1) social networks have substantial effects even after unobserved factors (e.g., homophily) that may determine social networks are controlled; (2) controlling for these unobserved factors may substantially alter the estimated effects of networks (these controls were not used in previous studies); (3) network effects are important for both men and women; and (4) network effects are nonlinear and asymmetric, suggesting that networks provide information primarily through social learning, rather than by exerting social influence.     

Urban Quality of Life: A Case Study of Guwahati

This paper studies quality of life (QOL) in urban environment. The term environment has been used in broader sense, which includes physical, social and economic environment. A framework has been proposed which posits that QOL comprises objective condition of living and satisfaction from such living condition constitutes QOL. Such objective condition refers to objective QOL and satisfaction refers to subjective QOL. Dimension of QOL has been found to be multi dimensional. It has been found that both objective and subjective condition is important dimension of QOL. But correlation between objective and subjective QOL has been found not to be high. At the same time it has been found that satisfaction from condition of traffic is the lowest among all satisfaction variables.     

Migration, health, and environment in the desert southwest

The “immigrant health paradox” has captured the attention of researchers struggling to understand why immigrants to the United States appear to have health advantages that would not be predicted by their socioeconomic position. This research extends prior analyses through examination of the potential role of environmental factors in explaining the immigrant health paradox. We use data from the Phoenix Area Social Survey, a survey conducted in 2006 of approximately 800 individuals. Multilevel ordered logistic models examine three health outcomes: self-rated health, heat stress, and asthmatic symptoms. An innovation is our multiple considerations of contextual factors, including neighborhood amenities, disorder, traffic counts, and the heat index. We have three key findings: (1) frequent local migration has negative impacts on health, (2) the local neighborhood environment partially mediates differences between US-born non-Hispanic Whites and foreign-born Hispanics, and (3) subjective measures of the local environment tend to have greater effects than objective measures. In sum, our analyses suggested a need for studies of place and health to consider migration and residential history as a factor shaping health outcomes. Further, regarding the immigrant paradox, the results suggest the need to move beyond a dichotomous measure of immigration contrasting international migrants with native-born residents.     

The mobility experience and neighborhood attachment

In this study, I consider variables associated with an individual’s most recent move into his or her current residence as predictors of neighborhood attachment. Using the 1978–1979 Seattle Community Attachment Survey, I find that elements of the mobility experience such as an individual’s past history of migration, the motivations for moving, the amount of time involved in the move, and the distance traveled during the move have an effect on shortand long-term neighborhood attachment patterns independent of residential stability and investment predictors. The findings imply that psychosocial factors such as familiarity with the environment, increased premove exposure to the new environment, and perceived control during instances of transition have some impact on individuals’ postmove attitudes and behaviors, and suggest that researchers should look beyond traditional “types of people” explanations of urban neighborhood attachment.     

Assessing Adjustment to Aging: A Validation Study for the Adjustment to Aging Scale (AtAS)

Adjustment to aging (AtA) is a multifactor adjustment process with implications on aging well among older adults. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scale to assess the factors that older adults recognized as indicators of their AtA, with a cross-national comparative perspective towards aging well. Convenience sampling was used to gather questionnaire data, including demographics and the proposed scale. Complete data was available for 1,291 older community-dwelling adults, aged between 75 and 102 years (M = 83.9; SD = 6.68), who represented four different nationalities. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed for dimension reduction and exploration of the factorial structure. Data gathered with the 22-items AtA five-factor scale showed overall good psychometric properties (in terms of distributional properties, statistical significant factor weights, factorial, convergent, discriminant criterion and external-related validities, as well as reliability). Five factors were selected for the Adjustment to Aging Scale: (a) sense of purpose and ambitions (b) zest and spirituality; (c) body and health; (d) aging in place and stability; and (e) social support. We present a 22-item scale with five factors for AtA estimation in a cross-national elderly population which produced valid and reliable data for elder persons from four different nationalities. Results showed that this scale is an adequate cross-cultural instrument for research, clinical practice and program development in the health care context. These may benefit from clearly understanding AtA as an important component for reducing health disparities and for aging well, across nationalities.     

Premarital childbearing in Thamaga Village,Botswana

This paper examines the diminished importance of marriage as a setting for childbearing in Botswana. It uses qualitative data gathered in Thamaga Village during 1995 to explore the cultural basis of this development. Marriage practices and traditional attitudes to marriage, childbearing and sexual relations are reviewed, and factors identified as having undermined them are discussed. Rational adaptation theory and social disorganization theory then provide a framework within which forces encouraging premarital childbearing in Thamaga are investigated. Both theories are found to be useful. Especially where women are older, premarital childbearing is often strategic and goaldirected, providing a sense of self-worth, labour and old-age security. In many other cases, however, it reflects spontaneous sexual activity generated by the undermining of social controls and inauspicious economic circumstances. Societal attitudes to premarital motherhood become less condemnatory after about age 25, as women are judged to have waited long enough for marriage.     

Factorial ecology: A critique and some suggestions

Studies in factorial ecology have typically used the principal factor procedure coupled with varimax rotation. Since it can be shown that the results one obtains vary according to the factor and rotation models he employs, and since there is no one “best” way of obtaining initial and derived factor solutions, it is proposed that future research in the area adopt an approach involving the simultaneous use of several different computing algorithms for obtaining initial solutions and both orthogonal and oblique rotation procedures to avoid the possibility that the results one obtains are not method-dependent. Ideally, the factor models employed should differ maximally with respect to the principles upon which they are based. If one finds a given factor regardless of the method he uses, only then can he assert with any confidencethat it is not an artifact of his method. Factorial ecologists are often interested in computing “factor scores”, but “true” factor scores are not uniquely computable; they can only be estimated. Since the proposed research strategy involves using either a component or an image model, in which the corresponding scores are exact and uniquely computable, the factor score problem is, in a sense, solved. Next it is suggested that, by using orthogonal solutions, factorial ecologists may be overlooking a very important piece of information—the correlation between the factors. There is some reason to believe that this varies from city to city, and may account for the fact that some factors which emerge in studies of Western cities are sometimes not found in cities elsewhere. Some comments are also made on the value of using census tract data, and on the availability of computer programs for different initial and derived factor solutions.